Hella Thrashing
by Shinra-ex-SOLDIER
Summary: "Ready for the mosh pit, shaka brah!" No, she was in fact so not ready. Max realized her mistake all too late once she and Chloe arrived at the punk concert out of town. - Wherein Max punches Chloe out.


"Ready for the mosh pit, shaka brah!"

No, she was in fact so not ready.

Max realized her mistake all too late once she and Chloe arrived at the punk concert out of town. Sure, Max has seen concerts before but they were all behind the safety of a screen as she watched live recordings in preparation for this. Well that was stupid since no amount of hours watching could have possibly prepared her for the hellhole she so willing jumped into. She's seen bigger venues in videos but that didn't mean she could handle the smaller but still dauntingly large ones. Did she already mention the insane amount of people? It was amazing and suffocating at the same time. There's seriously too many people crammed in here and she could have sworn that there's more people here than there is in Arcadia Bay.

And Chloe wanted them to dive headfirst then swim right in until they were near the stage which was the only place where she could actually see the floor.

"I don't know about this, Chloe." Max confessed with her left hand consciously rubbing her right arm. She looked just as much as she felt and she felt like a defenseless human being about to get tossed into a pit filled with more humans than she's comfortable with. Even worse, it's a mosh pit. "I think it'll be safer to just chill here in the back."

"And miss out on all the fun? Lame!" Chloe scoffed at her as if she expected this reaction. She probably did. But it's not like that's going to stop her. "We came here to thrash. We didn't drive out here for an hour just so we could quietly admire the view of the backs of people clearly having a good time. While we're busy staying safe and boring, they're punk and living dangerously!"

"Well living dangerously is kind of like the leading cause of not living. Literally." Max joked and she hoped that with enough charm, Chloe would buy it. Of course hope and expectations were two different things and she's learned so far to lower expectations around people especially when it came to Chloe and good decisions.

"Stop being so chickenshit, Max. It's just a concert. It's not going to kill you." Chloe clapped her on the back encouragingly and then started dragging Max by the hand into the crowd of people. Max may have planted her feet on the ground but damn, Chloe's packing guns with that incredible grip strength. "Besides, you asked for this. I know this isn't exactly your scene but you're the one who begged me to take your bony ass here. So sue me for being such a good friend."

"Best friend." Max corrected with a smile.

Chloe flashed her a toothy grin. "And best friends make stupid decisions together all the time."

They dive deeper into the crowd and it's kind of mind-blowing how they could possibly squeeze through barriers made of people when it looks like there's hardly enough space to breathe. Max is pretty sure she's made enough physical contact to last her a lifetime's worth. They got a lot of glares and hand gestures for shoving in between people. Max ducked her head all throughout with muttered apologies while Chloe held her head high as if she owned the place and returned comments with her own colorful vocabulary. The deeper they headed, the more people there was seemingly cemented by their numbers. Once they got close enough to the stage and stopped, Max thought she could finally breathe in relief. Oh, how naive she was. They didn't call it a pit for nothing. She could barely move in there and it was so hard to breathe. In th midst of Max' suffocation, she worried about how worse it would get once the actual thrashing started.

"Is it…" She wheezed and then she had to gather her breath to yell loudly enough because not even she could hear herself. "Is it always this… intense?"

"You wish!" Chloe barked out a short laugh. "The show hasn't even started yet. Don't tell me you're already quitting on me because I busted my ass just to get this spot and I'm not giving it up until the concert's over."

As much as Max wanted to tell her that she may have reached her limit long before that, she knew how much Chloe had looked forward to this. She's not going to ruin this for her. And besides, as much as Max wasn't into it, she was kind of looking forward to this too. Hanging out with Chloe always resulted in fun- reckless and bordering illegal fun but fun nonetheless. "Are you kidding me? I came here to thrash!"

What was it that Chloe said before? Best friends make stupid decisions together. Yeah, that one.

The band was loud. There was no other way to describe their music since Max could barely listen to the finer details when the speakers blared way too much than necessary. She honestly couldn't tell if the music was that good but holy shit did she feel awesome. It was unlike anything she's ever experienced before. Even the shy hipster Max could hear her inner punk calling or more like shouting. She could kind of understand why Chloe would like going to these kind of events. It really was something. Everyone was just full of life, too much life even, and it felt like there was literal energy in the air that even Max felt the buzz in her head. It was a low grumble at first but by the second song, it had everyone roaring.

"Aw, yeah! Let's hella thrash!" Chloe whooped and that was the closest thing to a warning that Max was going to get before chaos ensued.

The whole world started to move but that made it sound like it was tame. No, this was no tame slight movement, this was wild thrashing and bodies colliding. With every hit, it energized the people and pretty much everyone around her were overcharged batteries dishing out at each other. And poor Max was being swept by the mosh pit that's become like a force of nature, uncontrollable and unrelentling. She even got shoved to the side at some point, her arm out and ready to rewind, but before she could regain her bearings, someone had pushed her again. And that's how Max accidentally clocked someone in the middle of a mosh pit.

When Max turned around to check on her partner and then turned again to check just who she decked, it's only then that she connected the two.

"Holy shit! Chloe!" Max swore out loud as she dove after her fallen friend courtesy of her fault. "Sorry! I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to! There was just so many things happening at once and I panicked and-" She rambled on just spouting what came in to her mind. She wasn't thinking at all, she was just talking and apologizing. It even took her a second to remember that she had time powers and make everything better. She raised her hand. "You know what, I'm just gonna-"

"Don't!" Chloe hissed as she grabbed onto Max's arm tighter than usual. Her voice was so low and easily drowned by the noise but Max heard the seriousness in her tone loud and clear. "Just. Don't."

"I'm so sorry, Chloe. I didn't mean to. I swear it was an accident." Max apologized again because one, she honestly meant it and two, she's never heard Chloe with that tone before at least not at her. She did not want to incur her best friend's wrath. "I fucked up. I'm going to rewind and make the pain go away, okay?"

Chloe's grip on her tightened and as she pulled her in, she ordered, "Don't you dare rewind that punch."

"What? I already feel bad about it. I swear I'm going to tell you about it after I rewind! I just don't want you to end up sporting that bruise." Max half-explained and half-pleaded. She seriously messed up and Chloe didn't want to let anyone of them forget. Max bit her lip as her eyes begged her to reconsider. "I fricking punched you, Chloe."

"And it was one hella punch." Chloe answered with that same deathly tone. And then the punk did the wildest thing and smirked devilishly. "You do me proud, Mad Max."

Max blinked, confused. "What?"

"Cute. You seriously don't know how a mosh works." Chloe laughed, it was such a relief to hear that and easily the tenion was lifted. She then not so lightly punched Max at her shoulder. Max winced. Well that actually hurt. She was about to whine about it but then remembered that she did punch Chloe just seconds before. Chloe just laughed harder at Max's face and gave her a clap on the back for good measure. "There. Now we're even."

"Wowsers." Max let out a relieved breath and even found herself smiling again despite her nerves. "We just punched each other. Does that mean we're bonded for life now?"

"Totally. Forever." Chloe readily answered and even hit the sore spot again much to Max's annoyance and pain. She was definitely enjoying this. "Now that we're bonded, our first post-bonding activity is you helping me get back in there." She gestured to the mosh pit that looked more like a storm of violence. "I'm going to fucking kick that asshole who groped me. I know the bastard's in there somewhere. Come on, Max. Let's fucking raise hell."

"You mean hella?" Max quipped with a pun that she may have been saving for a while now.

"Did you just say my patented word? I am such a good bad influence on you." Chloe's grin was absolutely dazzling and her purpling bruise brought out her teeth quite attractively. "Welcome to the mosh pit, sistah!"

It was the most awesome mosh pit Max has ever gotten in to. Hella hardcore. She's not going to another one anytime soon though since Chloe could get pretty intense and violent when given the chance.

Besides, she'd rather crash at the after-party than thrash.

* * *

 **A/N** At first I planned for Max to punch Chloe unconscious but then I remembered how Max isn't the most physically fit protag out there. So it ended up like this and it's longer. I'd like to think that Chloe would be stoked to get punched by Max but only under this circumstance. Otherwise, she'd be pissed.

 **Regarding prompts:**

So I'm currently taking lis prompts on my tumblr shsl-shipper-gamer-fangirl (I know it's long shhh obviously I make terrible life choices) and my goal is to write 2 per week and post 1 here every week. There's not much any restrictions regarding ships (or lack thereof) or genre. Whatever goes, I'd like to see how flexible my writing is.

 _Drop by a prompt there_ if you're still stuck in time with this fandom!


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